


The Promise of a Universe

by sihaya13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7297930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sihaya13/pseuds/sihaya13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had the promise of a universe in those eyes of his, swirling nebulas and twisting galaxies, spinning solar systems and burning stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the Brink

In a single moment everything can change. One moment, instantaneous, and you’re on a path you never imagined.

One moment of change, a single glance. That’s all it takes. 

It was their engagement party, of all places. The fairytale of the family they were, proclaimed in love by their parents the moment they were born. Nothing could spoil their happiness. They’d settle down, have some kids and live in a gingerbread house with the Fairy Godmother as their nanny and pet unicorns roaming the fields. 

I was decidedly inebriated. It’s a strange feeling, I’ve always found. There’s a stone cold sober section of my brain which runs alongside the drunken section. However the decisions of the drunken section are carried out while the sober section observes the proceedings with a grim smile and a disappointed shake of the head, a top hat adorning his hair and one of those fancy cigars hanging from his mouth. This top hat and cigar persona of soberness was all too happy to stand back and allow me to make a fool of myself, and was rather sadistic in his punishments of head cracking hangovers. The engagement party was such a time, where a nasty incident with a chair had the entire room in shaking fits of mirth and me storming or, rather, haughtily stumbling, from the house. 

I lay on the lawn, loving the feel of the soft, springy grass beneath my back and looked up at the stars. It’s a confronting experience. It feels like I’m staring down the universe, staring the heart of creation in the eyes. All of time and space is laid bare for me to see, an entire universe of unknown beauty and wonders. My heart constricted and my breath hitched in my throat as I gazed open mouthed at the skies above. This was not, in case you were wondering, an effect of the alcohol. The stars always seem to cause this reaction in me, a wonder and a curiosity so deep that brilliance overtakes it. 

Then he came out. By now, I suppose, you’re expecting something dramatic. Maybe he threw himself on me in a fit of wild passion. Maybe I threw myself on him in a fit of wild passion.

No. It was much subtler than that.

I doubt he realised what happened. For that matter I doubt he noticed anything was amiss. I’m not sure I can comprehend it. It was the teetering on a precipice, the beginning of a new beginning. Noticing the potential to fall is there while watching the possibilities from above, wavering on the edge of the unknown.

He looked at me. He had a lopsided grin on his face as we conversed. The particulars of the conversation have long since fled my mind, inane drunken rambling I’m sure. It was the eyes. I’d never been able to pin point the exact colour, a light brown, deep hazel, blue, green. They twinkled in a different fashion each time I looked at them.

As I lay there on the grass, he lay beside me. We watched the stars. I turned my head and looked him in the eye and found it felt no different to watching the stars. He had the promise of a universe in those eyes of his, swirling nebulas and twisting galaxies, spinning solar systems and burning stars. 

Naturally, I did what any sane girl would do.

I ran.


	2. Teetering Over

Another time, another place, we stood atop a cliff. The wind howled around us, and the skies opened up and proceeded in an attempt to drown us.

They weren’t engaged anymore.

It was the eyes, you see. Those promises of a wonderful future we both glimpsed in each other. The inexplicable call of fate had captured us in its web, two individuals stranded in a storm. 

Through the use of some sort of silent communication we both walked forward to the edge of the cliff and sat, our legs dangling over the edge. We were both reckless, the sense of danger and the thrill exciting us. 

We both had nothing and yet everything to lose. We were both miserable, so what could be worse? Yet we were both hopeless romantics, always holding onto that last glimmer of hope that somehow things would work out. If we fell, so too did the hope. Yet if we survived, would we fly?

I’m not actually sure what happened with their relationship. Nor do I care, particularly. It was too perfect, too planned, too much like a fairytale. It made the rest of us seem inadequate, bland against their rainbow of happiness. It’s a little twisted, I suppose, to be pleased that their rainbow shattered, but it makes the world make just that little bit more sense in my head. It’s nice, I find. 

We ran, then. Through the rain, we crushed thunder beneath our feet. 

We always do things dramatically.

You know, now that I think of it, I can’t remember when I started referring to the two of us as a ‘we’. I don’t remember when, in my head, we stopped being two separate individuals and became instead a singular, rather fucked up, entity. 

We don’t do normal either. 

In fact, we’ve had an essentially silent friendship, of sorts. Which is odd, I think. But then I’ve never been a fan of talking simply for the sake of the thing, and talking just doesn’t seem to be necessary all that often. 

I love the feel of the rain stinging my face, and the wind swirling about me. There is so much power in the weather, it always amazes me. He gave up on the running before I did, and so I jogged impatient circles around him before settling into a walk. 

“It never felt right, you know,” he said after a while. The sound of his voice astonished me, so rarely had I heard it. When he’s talking because he has to, with a fake smile and a cheery grin, he sounds so very different. Like this, he sounds like a person, a real one. Instead of an inadequate actor.

“Victoire?”

“Yeah. It was almost too right, if such a thing is possible. But at the same time we didn’t fit at all.”

“Too much like a fairytale. You just went along with it because you assumed it was what you were supposed to do.”

“I suppose I did, really. But then you smiled at me, that night at the party, and the whole thing just shattered. The illusion. I realised how hard I had to work to have a conversation with her, because we had next to nothing in common. But with you, and my grandma, and Harry, it’s so natural. And now I don’t know how I never noticed.”

“Love is blind, isn’t it? Even not quite love, only fancy or like or even only desire, are blind. Shows the power of the thing, doesn’t it?”

He murmured something unintelligible. 

I think that was the night his world tilted too. 

He was already off kilter, but sometimes something so subtle builds and builds and builds until suddenly there’s a roaring tsunami racing at you.

And there’s really nowhere to run.


	3. The Fall

I think I might have figured it out now. When we became a we in my head, that is.

I suppose you could say we just slowly fell into the habit of it. We became friends, did stuff together. We’d meet up in our work breaks for coffee, go to the muggle movies on occasion. Our parents always joked that grandpa was a bad influence on us all when we exchanged muggle presents at Christmas. 

I should mention, at this point, that him and Victoire were still engaged. Only just, though, and not for long. I’m not sure how much he remembered from the engagement party, but somehow despite the alcohol we fell into a routine. 

I’ve been asked, since, by various family members and friends, do I feel guilty? I always say, what for? I can honestly say that nothing romantic happened between us. We were simply friends, and he was simply miserable, and I was simply stuck. Next to no friends, certainly no decent ones, a not even average job, a nonexistent social life. It was so nice just to have someone to talk to, and not to have to try. Nice to have someone to alleviate the dullness. 

He didn’t tell me before he broke off the engagement. He just came over to my flat afterwards and stared into his coffee cup for half an hour. 

“What have I done?” he said.

And I knew. 

“Something for you, and not for them.”

He looked at me then, and I saw some of his despair leech away. I smiled. He left then, to be by himself. I think he was confused. He wanted to know why he’d done it, and he didn’t want it to be for the wrong reasons. He was too nice for that, I knew, but he couldn’t see it in himself. 

After we walked away from the cliff, everything began to change. I’ve never figured out which way we fell, we walked off one side of the precipice only to reach another. I’m not sure I’d call it flying, more like endless falling, yet never landing. I suppose it’s just me being nitpicky, but it wasn’t quite an uplifting enough feeling to be classed as flying. 

Not that I wasn’t happy. I was the happiest I’d been for years. But I wasn’t content.

I hated myself for it, for a while. I hated myself for wanting him, after what he’d just been through, and to a lesser extent the effects on Victoire and the family.

As you can imagine, it split the family down the middle. All felt sorry for Victoire, of course, nothing was her fault. And yet some of us could see it wasn’t his fault either. If anything you could say it was the fault of circumstance, the fault of being brought up with an idea about how you have to live and attempting to live it but finding out it’s not really for you at all. If he hadn’t left her, what would have happened? He would have grown bitter and discontented, and so would she. 

Slowly I realised it wasn’t my fault either. Just because I felt something for him, didn’t mean I’d caused this. I suppose I caused his realisation that it wasn’t right, but that would have happened sooner or later in any case. 

But I still feel that nagging little something. 

I suppose when I say I don’t feel guilty, I’m lying. Only a little, but a lie nonetheless. 

We had one of those semi-silent discussions of ours one night. Dramatically, of course, because that’s how we tend to get things done.

I suppose it wasn’t that dramatic, but it was during a power failure. We were having a muggle movie night, so we jokingly refused to use our wands in honour of the whole thing. 

A few words were spoken, but mostly we just interpreted the sound of silence. We both knew what we wanted to say, the only thing is neither of us really knew the answer. 

Did we dare to do this, were we brave enough to disappoint half the family?

Were we brave enough to jump of the edge?


	4. In Flight

We did it anyway, of course. I’m sure you all guessed that by now. It’s hardly a romance without any romance, is it? And we’re both a little too headstrong to wait, silently stubborn.

So yes, I suppose I could give you a soppy description of our first kiss, and our first date, but I’m really not that sort of person. Besides, you’ll probably imagine something more romantic for yourselves.

It was nice, though. Being with him, being in love. It wasn’t perfect, nothing ever really is, and with a semi-warring family we never expected too much. But he was no longer miserable, and I was no longer stuck. The world seemed brighter. 

It’s been about a year now, and I just thought I’d write it all down. So I can mock myself later, of course. Don’t you always find reading the things you wrote when you were younger the strangest experience? Half the time you simply can’t figure out how you were once that person. 

He’s cooking me dinner tonight. I’m a little concerned really. We’ve just moved in together and I don’t fancy having the place burnt down. Perhaps he’ll surprise me though. Or get Andromeda to help. Cheater.

It was a few days after our semi-silent movie discussion that we jumped. No longer were we on the edge of the cliff, swaying to and fro with the pulls of others. No, we had made our own decision, leapt off one side never to return. It turns out the hopeless romantic in the both of us was right. We did fly. A little crooked, and scraping the ground sometimes, but flying nonetheless. 

We never actually announced it to the family, either. We walked into the Christmas gathering at the Burrow a few weeks later holding hands, sat down together and let everyone else make their own assumptions. It was somewhat amusing actually, watching the flurry of gossip around the table.

We did tell one person first. Well, Teddy did anyway. We’re not that cold hearted. She didn’t mind actually. Surprising, really. I was terrified. Teddy told me that she saw it too, now. Now that they weren’t together. She saw how much happier he seemed, and realised that they were never right. Gave us her blessings, in a sense. She’s a bigger person than I am, that’s for sure. Although I find her a bit of an airhead, I do find her an admirable sort of airhead now. 

So all in all, everything turned out alright. I don’t suppose it’s a fairytale, but I never expected that. Besides, we both like storms, the sound of the thunder and the ferocity of the lightning. We still go back to that cliff occasionally, with a picnic and an umbrella or two. They’re happy sort of storms, though, and in any case, you never know what’s going to happen. 

Maybe we’ll grow old together and live in a gingerbread house, with the Fairy Godmother as a nanny and pet unicorns roaming the fields. 

Anything’s possible, right?

Especially with that promise of a universe twinkling in his eyes.


End file.
